24 Carats is an act of play and celebration of contemporary poets who sent poems – greetings, homages, pastiches, paraphrases, ballads – answering the festive announcement of National Széchényi Library to submit works also in the form of manuscripts for our bicentenary exhibition „Others only get their laurels leaf by leaf…” – Treasures, Cult, Reception History. The approximately 100 manuscripts and reflections offered in such a short time prove that János Arany’s epic works, poems, his mastery in poetry and genius, as well as his personality as a poet and a man, are deeply rooted in the creativity of 20th and 21st century poets.
Fascinated by the play with numbers and precious metals (Arany means ‘gold’ in English), we set the carat as the unit of measure for the present selection. The anthology lets the poems written in different genres, styles and mood speak for themselves, presenting the manifold relations and emotions of contemporary poets with and towards János Arany. The variety of form and theme of the paraphrases and emotional-intellectual reflections provide a gold standard of 100 % that allows us to state with certainty: this is pure gold.

24 carats, 48 poets, 50 poems – these numbers can be divided, multiplied, and raised to a power, no matter if it is 100 or 200, but the bottom line will remain the same: Arany is gold is gold is gold.